The farmers in Moldova will suffer serious losses owing to this year’s drought and many of them, owing to the lack of revenues, risk being unable to start autumn sowing, said Vasile Mârzenco, executive director of the National Farmers Federation (NFF). He told IPN that due to the lack of precipitation, the wheat and barley crops were affected, but the crop and sunflower harvests will be yet the lowest.
“The authorities should promptly intervene and start to set up commissions with the participation of local public authorities so as to identify the localities where the farmers suffered due to drought and the rain with hail and to take measures and offer financial support. The farmers will not only fail to collect the planned revenues this year. They will also be unable to start the next agricultural season by sowing the land with winter wheat, barley,” stated the executive director of the NFF.
He noted that he runs a small agricultural company and his wheat crop this year will be by 50% lower on last year. The corn was seriously affected and there will be no harvest. The sunflower was over 50-60% affected and the incurred costs will no way be covered by the expected revenues.
According to Vasile Mîrzenco, the corn, wheat and sunflower in Moldova are not irrigated as the irrigation systems were destroyed. It is costly to use irrigation in agriculture and this problem should be solved. The farmers should be yet motivated to reanimate small-scale irrigation by rehabilitating the mudded ponds and lakes. The water from the Nistru and Prut is enough to ensure irrigation of crops at a large scale. But this water can be used at least to irrigate areas of crops that would satisfy the strict necessities of the country, including of wheat for bread making and for farm animals.
Even if representatives of the state say the farmers should insure their businesses, problems are experienced in this regard in exceptional cases. “The state provides subsidies for the farmers to pay insurance, but the farmers are not receptive and do not insure their crops to the extent to which the authorities expect. The farmers say they never have disposable incomes to insure their crops. Moreover, several years ago, some of the insurance companies behaved not really correctly towards farmers and insurance to farmers wasn’t paid on time,” stated Vasile Mârzenco.
